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Friday, October 20, 2017

Pinterest for the Researcher

First Published in the Oerthan Chronical, 10-17.

Disclaimer:
My focus is historical costuming, and I research most periods, not just
pre-1600….and there are a lot more post 1680s extant pieces in museums.But I will try to keep this as general as I
can.Hopefully these hints help!

Figure 1

Many people
say to stay away from using Pinterest as a resource for your research.Obviously, since I’m writing an article on
it, I feel somewhat differently; it /can/ be used as a useful source of
information…if utilized correctly.So I composed
this batch of advice, which should help keep you from the dreaded Pinterest – Tumblr
loop.However, it basically boils down
to…:

Garbage
in, Garbage out:

Pinterest
takes suggestions of what to show you from what you pin…including sites/types
of sites, keywords, etc.What this means
is that if you pin random things without accurate notations, your feed will
tend towards that.On the other side, if
you—as I suggest—stick with pinning from reputable sources (generally museums,
and libraries for manuscripts), that is what your feed will primarily be…and is
what you want, since you can use these sources for documentation without
getting a hairy eyeball.Most of the
time, I won’t pin unless I see it’s from a .edu or .gov site (or similar for
other countries). Sadly, this means you should probably attempt not to pin shiny
reproduction items.It can mess up the
algorithms, since you are trying to keep your feed filled with reputable
sites.However, if you feel you must
gather other people’s work for inspiration—and I can understand the desire to
do so--, make sure it goes back to the original maker (who hopefully provided documentation).
Unfortunately for those who tend to work
with earlier period items, Pinterest can be scant on inforomation, simply
because there isn’t as much material data out there, so you may have to work
off of tertiary sources composed of other people’s work more often.

Dedicate
your Pinterest:

Unfortunately, Pinterest doesn’t yet have the option for multiple accounts, so
if you want to get the most out of it, you need to practice discipline in not
pinning items which don’t have reputable sources and information.Obviously, this works best if you are just
now opening the account so you don’t have old stuff potentially messing it up,
but algorithm tends to give the most attention to the most recent pins, so hope
is not lost.Along with practicing
discipline in what you pin, make sure you include citations in the captions; if
you are pinning something from a manuscript, include the MS number and location
of the book; if an extant piece, include the date of the piece, what the piece
is called in general (the correct name, preferably, although this can be tricky),and the museum at which it resides.For paintings, have the date painted and
origin, the painter, and hopefully the museum in which it resides.

Another
technique which helps up the average quality of what you see is to Seed your Feed;
find a good source of something you are interested in, and pin a bunch from
there, with correct information (see Using Citations, above).This gives the algorithms something to work
with.This technique can lead to a bit
of a vicious cycle, since if you pin a bunch of something, that’s going to what
is primarily in your feed for a while, which means it feeds off of itself.Not a bad thing, but if you have many periods
or topics of interest, make sure to spread your pins out a bit.

Some
Auxiliary Tools and Techniques:

When you
are doing Pinterest based research, I’ve found that using Firefox browser seems
to work best, if you get yourself a couple of addons right off.The Pinterest share button, is more or less a
given so that you can share new images….but you also need to be able to do
reverse image searches easily.I use Search by Image (by Google), but I
believe there are others out there as well.Chrome and other browsers may also have similar addons as well now, and
I doubt it matter which one you use.

Use
reverse image searches with keywords to find images which are (probably)
reputable, but not linked to the original source, or don’t give the needed
info.It’s pretty simple…just right
click and select search by image.Usually, the search box will give a couple of terms which it thinks is
related…usually, these aren’t much help.I usually replace the suggested terms with more specific with museum,
or manuscript/illumination to start, then get more detailed as I find
hints as to the source.In addition,
make use of Boolean searches….the one I use the most is –Pinterest.com. This helps keep you from ending up
back where you started.However,
sometimes an individual pin of the image can have hints to help narrow your
search, and you can spot that in the small preview before you go to that page.

Use
Specific Terms:

When you
search in Pinterest, use a string of specific terms to help keep modern stuff
out—I usually include the decade as well as what exactly I’m after; instead of
searching for Medieval illumination, Lady, I went far more specific (too
specific, when I first tried to narrow it down to decade) with 14th
century, illumination, Italian, lady (figure 2).In the first search (figure 1), you can see
that while it wasn’t too bad, it was a bit out of focus with results from
multiple periods; in figure 2, you can see that there aren’t any modern
results, and all the images are from 14th century manuscripts, even
if not all Italian in origin.If that
doesn’t give you any results—and it has happened to me!—take a term off.If you end up with too many non-applicable
things, tighten up the search terms even more.Then shift your search; move it up or down by a decade, use a synonym
for your target term, things like that to broaden it while remaining specific.

Figure 2

Organize,
organize, organize!

Hate to say
it, but the more organized and specific your personal boards, the better the
information you end up with, since it give the site more usable keywords.When I sorted my clothing finds by Decade and
Gender, I started getting much better results just coming up in my feed.So spend an afternoon with a pot of tea and
good music, and go to town on re-sorting everything. DO use project boards when you have something
specific in mind!They can be an
invaluable way to organize pictorial resources when you are in the Research and
Development stages of a new project.

2 comments:

I tend to do most of this, as it developed intuitively over time, and I have indeed noticed that Pinterest's suggestions have become much better suited to my needs over time as I started pinning more conscientiously. But since it's a personal account, and I use it for personal interests, not all of it I do as rigidly... I do repin things without all the info, especially fashion plates; but I indeed do try to avoid Tumblr (and blogs without the relevant info in general) as much as possible. The biggest mistake to make when using Pinterest for research, I feel, is repinning without visiting the original site when it's not an obviously valid source. (And I do even that sometimes when I'm in a hurry...)... and when I pin from a musem site myself, I always include not just the museum name, but also the object ID. A, it's only polite to give credit that way, B, I've already had links disappear on me with site overhauls, so that should help with tracking objects down...What intrigues me now in your suggestion - I had no idea there's a search by image add on, that should come in super-helpful, I do that often enough with people's interesting but lazy Pins! Also the tip to add "museum" to the search.

Yup! Those who have been using it for years as a way to find serious information will likely already know a bunch of it.

I concur, and that is something I forgot to add; check to make sure the source is any good. And that is where the search by image comes in, to get you to the original source. Quite often I just skip over examples which don't have obviously reputable sites because I'm either in a hurry, or don't care enough

When I pin from a museum, I usually copy and paste the information the museum provides, which includes the ID.